Upside-Down
by Lightning of the West
Summary: Some cats are distant, with an aloofness that they never notice. Others are cold, with a hardness that shocks the ones they meet. So different, yet with one similarity, two cats meet with these different hearts, and unknowingly are bound to turn each other's worlds upside-down.


**A/N: This is a new story co-authored by Silenthunder and myself. Hope you all like it!**

'_I think it goes without saying, but I don't believe there's anything more oddly fascinating in this world than cows.' _

Whitepaw exhaled exasperatedly, the remnants of that key statement from that fateful conversation still racing circles inside his ears. _Seriously_? He'd been at this since sunhigh, but the secret of why Lain found these things so enthralling still eluded him.

There were very few things in this world that the white tom knew to be true, but without doubt, (according to Lain that is) one of them had to be that cows were, by far, the most interesting creatures that this world had to offer. And for the life of him, Whitepaw had spent the better part of the day painstakingly trying to figure out why.

In a way you could say that he had been observing them. Crouched within the tall weeds, he inquisitively watched as they walked, sniffed, and snatched grass from the rich earth and munched the green tendrils until they deteriorated to particles in a matter of moments. Those three things comprised up the entirety of the day and, suffice to say, Whitepaw was beginning to question what use they served that Twolegs seemed the need to want to own so many of them.

That was another tidbit of information Lain had decided to share with him. Apparently, for whatever reason, Twolegs went out of their way to gather and keep a mass amount of creatures like cows.

Whitepaw wondered, if like cats with mouse's that Twolegs used cows as a source of a prey, but just taking a look at the sheer size of one of them, the idea of even a pack of Twolegs taking down one seemed mousebrain, despite how stationary the cows may have appeared.

He sighed again, less severely than the first time. Was there something he wasn't getting or rather was it just Lain he didn't get? It was probably the latter as even with as much time as he spent with him there was still so little that Whitepaw actually understood about the mystifying tom.

Without warning, something splattered across the top of his head. Blinking in his surprise, Whitepaw didn't have time to register what had just occurred before two more drops of water plopped onto his head. Finally having something to focus on that didn't involve pondering over the significance cows, the white tom glanced up to find the slowly darkening backdrop of the sky.

Storm clouds swelled overhead, pregnant with precipitation that signified that his time amongst the black and white beings had reached its apex. With a oddly regretful twinge of dismay surfacing within the sea of jubilation at having been freed from this mind boggling conundrum, Whitepaw rose to his paws to go take shelter from the incoming rain.

Setting off in a romp just as the rain began to downpour, Whitepaw headed straight for the nearby Twoleg structure that he and Lain had spent the last two nights occupying. The structure itself was presented in a faded red, towering massively in size from front to back it could probably contain the herd of cows outside fairly easily.

As before when he'd first entered the Twoleg place, Whitepaw's nose was bombarded with an assortment of scents, ranging from sour and sweet, that coupled with the rain created an odd sort of odor. Despite the dank smell, however; the barn was thankfully warm inside.

Shaking droplets of water loose from his pelt to then transitioning to rasping a tongue across his fur, Whitepaw set to the task of drying himself. Taking a moment between licks to scan across the spacious area of the sparsely light Twoleg structure, he noted with some gloom the absence of his companion.

There was no telling where he'd ventured off to. Lain was like though, seeming to sporadically up and go whenever a sudden urge compelled him to do so.

He was a wanderer by nature, never sticking too long to one area in particular, though Whitepaw wasn't too worried about being abandoned. Lain for all his oddball tendencies never departed without first leaving some sort of indicator that he'd soon come back to him.

This morning for instance had been no different than the others, with Whitepaw waking to find a pine cone laying inches away from his face. Actions as those were synonymous only with Lain.

Time passed as the downpour of rain continued to fall. Whitepaw lay nested in a pile of hay up on the secondary level of the Twoleg place, listening to the sound thud of drops hitting against the top cover of the structure.

In a way the rain was a welcomed distraction for Whitepaw, helping to allow his mind to stay blank at a time where Lain wasn't here. It was only during the latter part of the day, around the time where the sun tended to finally set, that Whitepaw didn't feel comfortable with being alone to his thoughts.

He wasn't the type of cat who suffered for an overactive imagination, but it was times like this where his mind began to wander and the shadows of the night started to take shape as something else, something more.

Whitepaw reached up to rub an eye with a paw, trying to shake off the bleary feeling affecting him. _Great_. The last thing he wanted to do was doze off, but the steady rhythm drum from the rain was beginning to lull him to sleep.

Stifling a yawn, Whitepaw focused his attention to the opening entrance, watching as the pouring hordes of rain mixed in into the earth before branching off to form brown glops and globs of mud.

He continued to do this for the next unforeseeable amount of time, watching the process of rain and earth becoming mud until the procedure was repeated again and again, and the sheer amount of mud doubled. It wasn't anything captivating but it helped fight off the lethargy.

There was no exact time to pinpoint the precise moment when he fell asleep. One moment he was gazing at an overgrowing pile of mud, the next _it_ was there. Their eyes met and Whitepaw's world imploded.

Somewhere off in the distant a clap of thunder snapped and Whitepaw jolted awake, feeling the pulsating pound of his heart thud against his chest as the snares of the lingering nightmare clung to his psyche.

The hair along his spine was sharp and rigid; his claws extended and fully unsheathed were briskly gripping the straws of hay underneath him and crinkling them into splintered halves.

"Remember what Lain said, remember what Lain said," Whitepaw chanted furiously, trying to reign in his fear. The terror was just as potent if not more as it had been the last time. It churned his stomach, but he battled the urge to allow the nausea to take effect.

Managing to swallow back down his disconcert, Whitepaw was slowly beginning to gain control back over his faculties. His claws receded back and he was able to get his fur to lay flat again.

Whitepaw was just about back to his normal composure when his ears perked up. Had he imagined hearing something?

He angled his ears further outwards and listened. There it was! A faint sound calling out against the roar of the rain. "Present day, Whitepaw!"

Whitepaw shot to his paws and ran to the edge of the platform, a giddy glow of joy feeling him as he braced his lungs to shout back, "Present day, Lain!"

He couldn't help but feel a goofy grin come to his face as he stood looking down at the soaking, shaggy orange tom beaming back up at him from below.

'_Present day_' was a special saying unique only to Lain himself that served as his default greeting to everyone he met. Exactly it was what it meant though, Whitepaw hadn't a clue. All he cared about at the moment was how good it was to see Lai-

The grin immediately dropped from his face when he noticed the sodden and listless mass of black ginger fur lying at Lain's paws. It was too big to be a mouse and too small to be a cow.

"Do you think you could give me a paw down here, Whitepaw?" Lain called out. "I hopped to catch a few pieces of prey on my way back here, but this find was a bit unexpected even for me."

* * *

Cold.

It pierced her fur, soaked her skin and sent chills down her spine. The rain had drenched her while she had been hunting, and unable to see the boulder in front of her, she had tripped over it, hit her head, and had fallen into silent blackness. Everything disappeared and she thought nothing, but she still felt.

She still felt cold.

She heard the rain again now, heard it emerge out of the gloom, felt her ginger-black fur still plastered wet to her skin, heard noises above her that formed no words; it only was a continuous rumble of high and low pitches, rising and falling. She struggled to listen.

And now the noises separated and became two noises, words, voices, voices that spoke to each other above her head. The scent of new-leaf hung in her nostrils; she felt something smooth being pressed against the fur between her ears.

"Poor scrap. Is it alright?"

"I think it's a she, Lain, and she's only unconscious. She doesn't smell like a – like where I came from. I wonder what her name is?"

She opened her eyes slowly, at first seeing only a blur. "Whoeru?"

"Calm down, stranger," one voice meowed. "You're in a Twoleg nest; don't worry though, it's been deserted for moons. I'm Lain, and this is my friend Whitepaw. How do you feel?"

Now she could focus, and saw two toms. One was orange, the other white. The former had the spark of curiosity, but it was almost swallowed by a relaxed feeling that she despised. The latter gazed down at her with concern, but also with an aloofness that she had seen before, and a hint of fear that signaled to his sheltered life. Many could try to hide it, but she always knew the look of those who never faced the world like a warrior. She snorted. They would be of no help to her.

"Better than I'll ever be," she replied coolly, standing up. "Why did you bring me here?"

The orange tom spoke. "I found you in the rain. It looked like you hit the ground pretty hard, so I brought you to this Twoleg nest. Why were you out there, anyway?"

She turned and walked away a few steps, then sat down with her back towards them, rolling her eyes as she answered. "It's a barn, mouse-brain. That's what the Twolegs call it. And what I do is my own business, so don't expect to get any details."

"Touchy," Whitepaw murmured in Lain's ear. Lain nodded, taken aback at the coldness of her character, but still curious nonetheless.

"We were going to sleep in here," he meowed. "You can stay with us if you want to."

She remained still, with only a tail-flick to signify that she had heard. "Do whatever you like."

"Goodnight."

Silence hung in the air, leaving a clear reply.

As the rain continued and the night dragged on, she remained awake long after the other two had gone to sleep, staring out through a hole in the barn at the curtain of rain unblinkingly. She watched as the water from the clouds sped down to splash and soak and seep into the ground, enriching the earth and refreshing the places that needed this gift of life so badly.

She listened to the black thunder that heard white lightning, booming out a reply to the flash, her ears twitching as the sound rolled like a monster across the heavens. The brightness illuminated her scar-covered pelt, lines that crisscrossed and curved over black-ginger fur, fur that reflected the fire of her soul, fire that burned in cold golden eyes, mind-penetrating eyes that saw nothing.


End file.
